Chapter 24
twenty-four
. . .
Ever
The energy inside me rushes, swarms, and surrounds us, freezing the world outside of Fenix and me.
“You think that wearing me down, poisoning me, is the way to get what you want?” I move my arm, using Crimson’s speed, and my knuckles skim his jaw, knocking him out of my touch.
But the magic holds around us.
We both stop, and check, and Fenix smiles like he knew this would happen.
“You are as infuriating as you are remarkable, Sister. You refuse to help yourself, and I am just a tool to remind you of that. See,” he circles, looking around as if making his point, “you’re doing it, because I’m not.
You’re casting this, making our little bubble work without physical contact.
If you’d just done that—” I don’t let him finish.
The knife at my back is in my hand, and then, I arc my arm, slashing it across his chest and arm. It’s deep, and the blood blooms quickly.
But I keep the concentration, forcing the world around us to keep still while we do this. It might be rash. I might not be strong enough, but I can’t take any more. And now, I have power, replenished over these days of torture, my well full of every drop of magic he’s made me take.
It’s angry. I’m angry. And it thrashes at the walls I’ve confined it within.
No more!
“Bitch!”
“Monster!”
“You shouldn’t have wasted that opportunity.
You are too weak. You should be grateful I’ve not tossed you aside.
” He continues to circle me, and I can feel the strain to keep the world in stillness around us.
The invisible threads of his control, all shining and golden, aren’t in harmony with mine, to keep us in this status.
Just like when I tried to release Crimson from his grasp, my own strands of darkness eat away at his, overpowering him, dissolving his light.
The ropes of black stream faster and faster, flowing out of me to attack him.
He sees, knows what that means, and lunges for me again. I slice my arm away and turn before plunging the knife backwards, and it makes contact with his upper thigh.
“Arghh!” He stumbles forward, and I close the distance, standing over him.
He grabs my ankle with his hand, the contact jolting me, but I stay standing.
He’s lost his focus, and I sense the world coming back to our own timeline, but not before I push myself into his mind.
The ship, the maps, the people… it’s all a mix of images until...
We’re in the Great Hall, only it looks different.
Odd. And I realise it’s because he’s never been in the room itself but must have heard stories about it.
He sits on a throne, the room filled with people, as I sit beside him, the statue of Aslendrix gone, and in its place, a golden sun shining on everyone in the room.
There are no Orders, no colours, just followers.
I stand, seemingly able to walk through the vision without Fenix realising. Is this a dream?
I slip through the crowd, and it continues outside in The Court. Hundreds of people line the spiral, cobbled street up to the Tower, only the walls of the city are no longer standing. Rubble decorates the land around it, the river now a marshy wasteland outside.
All I can see is destruction.
But this is different to when I slipped into Orion’s memory.
That was real. I could smell the burning. Feel it around me.
This is an illusion. A warning. Of what might come to pass if Fenix gets his way.
In the vision, I look out across the Ember, and I’m struck with more visions. More devastation. This time of Estereah. The villages and towns that once thrived are now barren and deserted as if a deathly illness has spread across them.
And chains.
People in service, all of Estereah put to the service of Kirrasians.
Those with power.
My hands are cold, cold with the fear of what I’m witnessing, and I pull myself away from Fenix.
With a few blinks, I clear the vision, and I’m returned to the small ring, where my blood has watered the sand, and my heart has been slashed from my chest, time and time again.
All this pain, for that? For power?
“That’s what you wish for? That’s what you want to do?
You think our parents would have wanted that?
” My words scold him. “You have twisted everything to suit your own narrative, the one where you feel hard done by and weak. You’ve decided to take what isn’t yours for your own gain. That isn’t noble or right.”
“It is time to put us first.”
“Us? Who is us? I refuse to believe you want me by your side. You need me, that’s all.
And I’m beginning to think it’s because you can’t do this on your own.
” I needle him with my words, poking him when he’s down and injured, but I don’t care.
This is the first time I’ve seen a glimmer of hope that he is fallible, and that I can fight him.
As if my words taunt him, he snaps his wrist to the side, and the ropes of his golden power bind me, cutting off my shadows and keeping me immobile and paralysed.
“That’s enough.” It’s not the Usher’s voice, but Kalan’s.
From the corner of my eye, I see him walk up towards us. “I will not stand here and see you destroy each other.”
“You might have thought about that before keeping us separated, old man.”
To Kalan’s credit, he doesn’t back down from Fenix, who’s now sitting, the blood still oozing from his wounds as Kalan pulls the knife out of his thigh.
“Go and get healed up. The new moon’s tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” The days have grown so monotonous, filled with hopelessness and pain, that I’ve lost track.
Kalan crosses into my vision and gives me a pained smile. Why is he still here? Why is he doing this?
Without another word, Kalan helps him leave, but Fenix refuses to let me go, keeping me tied up and vulnerable with his magic, the strands of control digging in and holding me, keeping the final word in our argument as his.
It fades when he’s left the area around us, and I slowly gain momentum and use of my body again.
“Ever, Ever!”
I turn towards his voice and see Ten and Crimson racing towards me. I take a much-needed breath, filling my lungs, and will my heart to calm.
I’m not sure I’m ready for this conversation.
Crimson reaches me first, despite me draining her power. “You should have killed him!” she shouts. And I can’t blame her. I should have.
I should have done what Lyle did to those men, all those months ago.
“Ever, listen to me? Listen.” Ten’s words are fuzzy inside my mind, distant. “Look at me!” The iron in his tone snaps my focus to him, and I don’t miss the slight recoil. “Ever, your eyes.”
I close them and turn away, already knowing what he’s going to see. The darkness that I’m having to come to terms with. It’s within me, like it or not.
“I’m sorry.” The words are the only thing I have left to give. My blood has already been given, and that did nothing to protect either of them from pain.
This is the only option left.
Or we’ll all be facing a world we don’t recognise.
The well of energy, tucked safely behind my ribs, is there, and I reach for it, pulling the drops of Crimson’s speed to aid me in my retreat, and I leave.
I don’t turn back. I refuse to look back, and I keep my shields around my mind to ensure Ten has no opportunity to change my mind.
It’s the fastest I’ve ever made it back to camp—a matter of seconds—and I head for my quarters without interference. I pull the drapes closed and collapse into a fit of tears on the bed.
It’s too much. Everything is too much.
The power, the magic, the wrongness of it all.
The fact that I have a hundred scars now decorating my body, all from Ten, yet he’d hate to look at even one of them because he was forced to put them there.
The longing for my old life—a life before Kirrasia, before Ten—swims into my memory. How simple. How sheltered.
For the first time in so many weeks, I think about the mill, and Sophie and her parents. What would become of them if I were to let Fenix’s vision come to pass?
So, I dry my tears and dig out the folded pieces of paper on which I wrote all the jumbled information. The splotched ink stains surrounding the names of my parents. And I take it to the candle on the small table and burn it.
Food and water are delivered during the evening, but I don’t turn to see who braved stepping into my tent. I’m too far gone, inside my own world, to care.
As the night creeps on, I sense the moment the new moon rises. The energy I’ve been replenishing these last few days seems to vanish, as if poured away from a cup, and as I clutch the necklace around my neck, it’s stone cold.
Vulnerable to Fenix. And Selina.
And whoever else has power from Novandia.
I change my clothes with the few additional shirts and trousers I’ve been granted, my old ones, sporting too many rips and tears from the fighting, stained with blood and only fit to burn.
I wait, and with my magic now lost, fall into a disturbed sleep, only to wake before morning with a dread deep within my bones.
Something will happen today. I don’t need Aslendrix to tell me that.
The Usher talks about Novandia’s gift and the new moon, when Aslendrix is absent, is as close as they’ll get, surely, as an opportunity for whatever he is planning.
As I sit and plait my ratty hair into a new braid, fighting the knots into submission, the Usher comes to my door.
“It’s time.” He looks at me, dressed, the faint smell of smoke and burnt papers still lingering in the small space. If I didn’t know him better, I’d say he was suspicious.
But he brushes it away and leads me through the gloom of pre-dawn and out of the camp. We’re alone. Or rather, I can’t sense anyone following.